Pain and fear. Sometimes it feels like our existence in this place is defined by those words. If you have been following the news with growing despair – the murders of four boys and the ensuing escalating violence, take a moment to listen to a different voice. Ronen Green speaks for me, and I believe he speaks for many of us – Jews and Arabs, when he sings “I know there’s something better than just pain and fear.”
As someone who has grown up in Israel, and has chosen to build his life here, he writes from experience “I carried on my shoulders a gun for three years,” and the clarity of knowing that the cycle of violence cannot, must not continue, and the burden is on us – all of us – to speak out. Entrusting our lives and the lives of our loved ones to the politicians and policy makers, Green says “you let them play with the lives of your children/just accept what they say/while they justify war and crime and defense.” If we do not speak out, then we condemn ourselves to lives of violence, pain and fear.
It’s not simple, it’s far from simple. I just can’t understand why the voices calling for peace are somehow never as loud as those inciting to war, like Ronen, I keep asking, “so how come my voice just gets lost in the fight?”
But I know there’s something better than just pain and fear.
